Currently, the petrochemical industry primarily relies on finding existing deposits of stored hydrocarbons for subsequent refinement into fuels or chemical feedstocks for chemical synthesizing or processing. Next, the fossil carbon atoms contained in the fuel are combusted, or thermally processed, which releases a gaseous carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as an emission. There are natural processes that reclaim CO2 from the atmosphere, such as photosynthesis, weathering of rock and capture by marine organisms. However, the rate that the natural processes remove CO2 from the atmosphere cannot keep up with the current rate of industrial CO2 emissions. It would be advantageous to develop methods and systems by which the carbon dioxide emissions directly, or those already in the atmosphere, are used as a feedstock input to produce biogases, bioliquids and biosolids.
The value of renewable energies, like geothermal, solar, hydroelectric and wind are limited by the high cost of storage and the transportation infrastructure necessary to move that energy to population centers. Thus, it would be advantageous to develop methods and systems that can maximize the value of these renewable energy sources and allow for energy exports by converting that energy directly into biogases, bioliquids and biosolids which will be processed into higher density, fungible fuels that can be cost effectively moved using existing transportation infrastructure.
Nature has either scattered or isolated natural occurring microorganism colonies and their growth is limited by the availability of carbon, nutrients and energy. For, example geothermal vents are an abundant source of energy and nutrients that promotes growth of some thermophilic prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea). These prokaryotes are specially adapted to grow in these environments. However, their growth could be enhanced if there were other colonies of microorganisms present with which to exchange reaction products, by-products and energy. It would be advantageous to develop methods and systems that can collect and integrate dispersed microorganism colonies and maximize their growth by providing a continuous supply of carbon, nutrients and energy while continuously removing the by-products produced in forms of biogases, bioliquids and biosolids.
Nature has provided many organisms that use photosynthesis for growth. The function of these organisms has been to capture atmospheric carbon. However, the atmosphere, plants and soil detritus represent only a few hundreths of one percent of the world's carbon inventory (2,000 of over 100 million gigatonnes). The vast majority is stored as carbonates (˜99.9%), in the ocean, either in solution (˜38,000 gigatonnes), or as methane hydrates (˜50,000 gigatonnes). Recent discoveries, at deep-ocean thermal vents and in layers well below light penetration, have shown that older, non-phototropic, bacterial species are carrying out photosynthetic-like processes under a wide range of conditions. These organisms live in symbiotic balance from the seafloor to the surface. It is important to remember that the phototropes, which are dependent on sunlight as their primary energy source, are the most recently evolved organisms. A majority of living species evolved without photosynthesis. Their populations are dependent on temperature, pH, nutrient availability and currents. It would be advantageous the develop methods and systems that can maximize the use of photosynthesis to release carbon from carbon dioxide by helping the growth of microorganism colonies that produce biogases, bioliquids and biosolids. In naturally occurring consortia, only 20% of the total algal and bacterial biomass is of phototropic origin.
A biocolumn is a fabricated system capable of providing the environment described above which is made up of a number of tanks, pumps, heat exchangers and other components and subsystems sized for the optimal growth of the full range of species with appropriate interspecies material transfer, nutrient injection, waste disposal and product removal. Historically, industrial process systems similar to this have been approached as traditional civil engineering projects and have been uniquely engineered for each installation. This has resulted in high capital costs and poor economics for the resultant energy produced. Over 50 years ago HJ Lang demonstrated that the total cost of a chemical process plant was four to seven time the cost of the equipment purchased. Today these factors vary from 4.7 to 6.9 depending on the process, materials, location and size of the industrial scale plant.
US2007037259 discloses a process for fuel feedstock comprising, delivering a nutrient to a renewable source and reacting said source with microorganisms under controlled conditions in a reactor and removing recovered product.
US2003/0228684 discloses a cylindrical core structure and sunlight exposed on topmost layers.
WO2008127629 discloses a land based biomass production constrained by the limited amount of material than can be produced per acre because of nutrient, soil and weather conditions. Aquatic species can be grown at far higher densities per unit area with far more consistency. Most bioreactors have focused on the growth of phototropic species. This invention, which relates to the field of fuel feedstock production, discloses a system designed to reproduce the interdependent consortia found in nature where the majority of the biomass is anaerobic and non-phototropic. Through careful control of nutrient inflow, pH, temperature, product and waste removal, the system can be tuned to sustain an ongoing microorganism “bloom” condition across the full range of resident species. It also allows for the production of directly usable fuel oils and biofilms as well as gas streams that can be converted to commercially useful chemicals using available process technology.
The modular design and assembly of biocolumn system lowers capital cost of biocolumn and reduce the time necessary to design and install them on each site.
The biocolumn systems of instant invention is more related to interconnections between zones and species and try to maintain the natural flow of nutrients, communication, waste products etc., before the introduction of external inputs. An unappreciated fact that is ignored by most monocultural algae projects is that in naturally occurring consortia, there is a significant amount of interspecies communication and symbiotic consumption of deceased algae and other waste products. This communication and consumption both triggers and supports growth. Therefore, it is an aspect of the invention that each zone has an interconnection with the preceding and subsequent zones facilitates this interzonal transfer of material and information as well as provide additional inlets for externally supplied nutrients and outlets for product harvest and removal of toxic waste products, if any.
The present invention relates to a biocolumn system wherein the product gases can be recycled back into the input source. This enhances the efficacy of the system.
The present invention also provides a system for fabrication of a biocolumn, wherein the biocolumn is in form of modules. Modularization refers to the method of fabricating many of the components and subsystems. A key design parameter, is to make as much of the overall system factory-built and tested as possible.
There are several advantages associated with modularization of the biocolumn system. Uniquely designed plants are expensive because it is generally a single unit order and often involves custom engineering. Multiple unit orders and standardization of parts will quickly reduce the initial USD100, Purchased Equipment Cost significantly. Tanks, reactors, instrumentation, piping, electrical systems and buildings are individually bid and built on site. Integration of these subsystems into prefabricated modules reduces acquisition and installation costs. Further, the requirement of on-site labour is reduced by integrating service facilities into factory-built modules will reduce the requirement for on-site labor. Modularization reduces construction schedule and therefore the amount of on-site supervision. Furthermore, standardization reduces engineering from site-to-site to a simple analysis of the variation in feedstocks to determine handling, pre-treatment and mixing requirements. In brief, all of the above will reduce construction expenses; contingencies, working capital requirements and the total fixed capital investment.
In various zones of the biocolumn, carbon monoxide and other gases are produced. Some of these gases, such as methane, can be harvested immediately for such processes as Fischer-Tropsch Liquid (FTL) synthesis but there is never 100% conversion and carbon dioxide is directly produced by many of the bacterial and is also a by-product of the FTL systems. Although all algal biomass would be considered zero-net carbon, the limiting factor on carbon utilization is the total input quantity of carbon. Recycling effectively increases carbon input per unit of capital cost and enables an increase in overall carbon utilization, and therefore improving the system economics.
As to the benefits of modularization, it has been estimated that current cost projections for these types of systems shows reductions of as much as 50% in the capital cost of conventionally built system. As volumes grow, this is projected to climb as high as 70%.
In view of foregoing, it is evident that there arises a need to develop a system for fabricating biocolumn, which address the severe worldwide shortage of engineering, supervisory, installation, construction and operational personnel currently hampering the development of a wide range of industrial plants and facilities. These plants will be engineered and built in factories with the same level of skills as a shipyard or auto plant, two industries with massive overcapacity worldwide.